A Dance Hall in Disguise

Back when I posted the Deep River Christian Church history as it appeared in the Hobart Gazette in 1975, I lamented that the article wasn't clear about which house the church bought for a parsonage in 1967 — a house I found particularly interesting because it was said to have been a dance hall.

Now comes a reader to tell me which house it was.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Cheryl Jones.

This was the home of Rudolph ("Rudy") and Lillian Wencl, at 9411 Old Lincoln Highway. Rudy and Lillian were the great-uncle and great-aunt of our correspondent.

They were both natives of Illinois, married there in 1937, but were living in Menominee County, Michigan in the 1940 Census. Sometime in the mid-1940s, they moved back to Illinois, and then in the latter 1940s, to Indiana — as we can tell from looking at the birthplaces of their children in the 1950 Census:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com.

You will notice that Annie Anders, the lady of many cats, was recorded near them.

The enumerator noted "on right" for the Wencls, "on left" for Annie, but also that she (the enumerator) was proceeding west from the township line along the old Lincoln Highway, heading toward S.R. 51. Thus the Wencls should have been on the left. I'm confused, or maybe the enumerator was confused. We know where Olive Wood lived: that's on the right if you're going west.

My 1962 phone directory lists the Wencls on a rural route, no street address.

The house at 9411 Old Lincoln Highway was built in 1924, according to the Lake County records. I have not seen anything in the 1924 microfilm about who might have built it. It does look as if it were built originally as a family home, not a commercial building. Could it have been abandoned by the time it became a dance hall? Or maybe the people living there just shoved their parlor furniture against the walls for occasional dances.

Just west of Deep River, remember, was the schoolhouse-turned-dance hall. The newspapers circa 1924 often advertised dances at "Deepriver hall," which I have been taking to mean the former schoolhouse. Even earlier, before the house in question was built (assuming the county records are correct), there had been a dance hall at an unknown location in Deep River.


As for Rudy and Lillian Wencl, their hearts were in Michigan, it seems. After selling their Deep River home, they moved back to Menominee County, where they are both buried.